Pamela Leavey

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Category: Food For Thought

Food For Thought: Trust

March 5, 2012

Trust has been a theme that has been recurring in my life in recent weeks and bringing up issues of faith or I should say more aptly put, loss of faith.

The faith I question isn’t in myself, or my very complex and diverse understandings of the spiritual realm, so much as it in people and the lesson in don Miguel Ruiz‘s The Four Agreements to “be impeccable with your word.”

When people in your life are not “impeccable” with their word and you take them at face value, because you trust, you get hurt. There’s no way around that.

Times heals all wounds… but, trust when shaken or shattered no longer becomes a gift given freely, it must then be earned.

When you are impeccable with your word, you run less risk of breaking the trust of others… It boils down to, being capable of walking your talk.

(Photo: Salt Pan Sunset at the Parker River National Wildlife Refuge ~ c. Pamela J. Leavey 2011)

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Food For Thought: Nourish The Soul

March 1, 2012

As I sit here at my desk watching the snow fall on the river today I think this question and advice from Neale Donald Walsch is apt…

How long has it been since you paid attention – real attention – to your soul? There are many ways to nourish the soul, but you often must stop, just simply stop, life as you are living it…if only for an hour or a day or a week…and take some time to gift to your soul. Or, more accurately, to allow your soul to gift to you. ~~ Neale Donald Walsch

Always take time for you…

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Reflections: Seeing Rainbows

February 29, 2012

When I look to the skies, I often see very magical formations in clouds like the one below that looks a bit like a rainbow colored lightening bolt seen through the the bare trees:

When I see rainbows, my heart lifts up to the heavens in a sort of communion with the universe that fills me with joy.

It’s so important to find joy in the little things in life, as I have noted here in my Daily Affirmation today, and my Food For Thought post yesterday.

We go through life sometimes in a very numb state of mind, in that we forgot to look to the skies for rainbows or stop and smell the flowers.

I learned a long time ago that in being in the moment, you place your heart and soul in alignment with the opportunity to experience and feel joy. To be in the moment takes constant work and practice on living with an open mind and an open heart.

Awakening to joy, seeing rainbows is a great balm to the soul when we learn to look to even the littlest things to fill our hearts and minds with love and gratitude.

(Photo: Rainbow Bolt Through the Trees ~ c. Pamela J. Leavey 2012)

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Food For Thought: Find Joy

February 28, 2012

A short time after publishing my earlier post today, Live With Sorrow, I looked out of my desk window to check on my little yellow crocus that have been blooming sporadically for over a week now and found they had some companions… Some lovely white crocus had also bloomed.

As I hobbled down my driveway, camera in hand, I was filled with joy knowing that more of the crocus I had planted last fall were poking their pretty little petals out in the sun.

It’s true that the smallest and simplest things can fill our hearts with joy. For me flowers have always been a great source of joy. I spent 20 years working as a floral designer and although the long hours during the holiday seasons were rough, the work itself was always filled with joy. It never ceased to amaze me during those 20 years, that I could look at a bunch of white daises, or red roses, or pink carnations and find that one perfect flower that made me say, “wow.”

Joy is all around us… Even in times of deep sorrow, we must open our eyes to see, open our ears to hear and let it the joy flow into us every day.

(Photo: Crocus On The River ~ c. Pamela J. Leavey 2012)

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Food For Thought: The Courage To Wait

February 27, 2012

Great advice and fabulous Food For Thought…

THE COURAGE TO WAIT

“When you’re like a keg of dynamite about to go off, patience means just slowing down at that point—just pausing—instead of immediately acting on your usual, habitual response. You refrain from acting, you stop talking to yourself, and then you connect with the soft spot. But at the same time you are completely and totally honest with yourself about what you are feeling. You’re not suppressing anything; patience has nothing to do with suppression. In fact, it has everything to do with a gentle, honest relationship with yourself.” ~~ Pema Chodron:  Practicing Peace in Times of War

It’s so important to remember in frustrating times to step back and find your balance or “soft spot” before reacting.

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Food For Thought: Seduction

February 24, 2012

I ran across this yesterday on Facebook from Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes. It’s a marvelous nibble of Food For Thought on the topic of seduction. Enjoy…

“If you’ve ever hung over the railing of a bridge looking down at the water passing, sometimes you feel a little vertigo as though you are being pulled to maybe jump in and be taken by the current. This is true of seduction also.

There can be a pull that is unexplainable, a desire to just fall forward, jump in for a fabulous destruction of self by which i mean a ‘take down’ of… the overly egotistical psyche. This positive deconstruction can be liberating for it shakes out all detritus and wholeness rises thus…

but there’s also detrimental destruction of self via seduction …by a blue bearded woman or a blue bearded man who claims they cannot do without… who whilst wheedling, wheeling and dealing, holds aces up the sleeve that you… do not know about. And you wonder why they always pull so compellingly on your tripes (gut) and you always seem to lose one more pound of flesh.

Make sure you know which kind of seduction you’re facing… within yourself, and with others. And if its the kind to throw you into a rapids you cannot survive… step away, step away from the railing… and walk to solid, non-moving ground. Find a tree. Lean forehead against it’s bark.” ~~ from The Contemplari manuscript, ©2000, by Clarissa Pinkola Estés, all rights reserved.

And heed the advice if need be… we can be seduced on so many levels by so many things. We live in a technological world that feeds our temptations everyday, with an explosion of images and words and things we feel we must have. It’s always so important to stand your ground, when something doesn’t feel right.

(Photo: Tree on the Merrimack River ~~ c. Pamela J. Leavey 2012)

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Musing and Rambling

Sometimes I muse and I ramble because I can... I muse about life and things that matter to me...

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